The use of premoistened or “wet” tissues or towel sheets has gained wide acceptance for a variety of uses, particularly premoistened bathroom tissue applications. The premoistened sheets are generally formed from an absorbent material such as tissue paper or a polymeric nonwoven web, and may contain a disinfectant, medicant, deodorant, cleansing agent, etc., in the “wet” formulation. The sheets are generally stored and dispensed from a sealable container to prevent the sheets from drying out.
Various premoistened tissue dispenser designs have been proposed for use with existing bathroom fixtures, such as fixtures for conventional rolled tissue products. For example, reference is made to U.S. Pat Nos. 5,439,521; 5,897,074; 6,056,235, and WO 01/89935. Such dispensers are designed to convert or adapt the premoistened tissue sheet dispenser to operate with the dry rolled tissue dispenser fixture. However, in doing so, the dry tissue roll is displaced from its dispenser. In other words, if the premoistened tissues are to be dispensed from the fixture, the conventional dry tissues cannot be dispensed. In reality, however, uses exist in a bathroom, restroom, and the like, for both wet and dry tissues. Thus, to satisfy this need with conventional designs, separate fixtures would need to be provided for wet and dry tissue dispensers. This may be problematic for space and mounting considerations, and it may not be possible or desirable to separately mount two different dispenser fixtures.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide a dispenser capable of dispensing wet and dry tissues simultaneously from a common fixture. The present invention addresses this need.